


Prompt: Flight

by EssayOfThoughts



Series: MCU Maximoff Oneshots [51]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Codependency, Fluff, Gen, Learning to Fly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-21
Updated: 2016-03-21
Packaged: 2018-05-28 01:21:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6308716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EssayOfThoughts/pseuds/EssayOfThoughts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Pietro?” Wanda asks that evening. She is plaiting her hair with her scarlet again: it is a good practice and it is, now she has got more used to it, calming. Pietro, sitting on the bed beside hers hums, but does not look up from his book. Wanda tilts her head, reads <i>Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone</i> and decides not to ask. "Will you join me for an experiment tomorrow?” she asks in Sokovian.</p><p>He does glance to her at that, eyebrows raised. “An experiment?”</p><p>Wanda twists her fingers, makes her scarlet dance around her hair and tie off the plait. “I have been making myself more tangible to my scarlet. I want to see what else I can do with that.”</p><p>Pietro looks curious and considering and then: “You’d better not be able to fly,” he says. “That would not be fair at all.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Prompt: Flight

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt on my tumblr, readable [](http://essayofthoughts.tumblr.com/post/141401956905/i-sent-you-a-submit-because-my-reply-didnt-fix-in>Here</a>.)

**i.**  
Wanda has known her scarlet since she first felt it curling through her bones and blood and into her brain. It is a part of her, just as much as her body is, her mind is, as much a part of her as Pietro is a part of her very soul. She knows how to make it move, make it hold things, move things, strike people with a force as strong as solids, shield people against things even metal would buckle under. She knows how to pull it through her very self and yet let it hit someone behind her all the same, and she knows, though she wishes she did not, how it will go wild with her emotions, should she lose control.

She’d not yet tried to make herself solid to it, however.

 

* * *

 

 **ii.**  
It is a test, the first time she considers it might be possible. Learning to make herself physical by sending her scarlet to plait her hair. Usually Pietro plaits it for her, able to see what he is doing where she cannot, but he is training and she is watching, and it is a simple thing to practice making herself tangible to her dancing scarlet.

One over the other over the other over the other, holding her hair precisely with scarlet that wisps into nothingness if she isn’t focussing. She does not notice Vision touching down softly beside her.

“Are you tangible to your scarlet then, Miss Maximoff?” His voice is, as ever, soft and unassuming. Wanda shrugs.

“I can not be tangible to it.” There is silence, and when Wanda looks up to the android from her seat he is frowning. “Vision?”

His expression immediately smoothed out. “It is nothing. I have just been trying to understand your powers and your brother’s, and how they might have come from-” he gestures slightly to the stone in his brow.

“Sit,” she says, and gestures to the stretch of windowsill she is sitting on. “Ask. I am sure you will be much more polite than Strucker and List.”

 

* * *

 

 **iii.**  
Talking with Vision is relaxing. It really shouldn’t be, with the memories it calls up of the castle, when she and Pietro had first gained their powers, her constant migraines as her brain latched onto her brother’s, trying to parse speed beyond what even Pietro could understand. But Vision is quiet and waits for answers and is more than happy to simply be quiet if he sees she is upset by some memory. Even when it should be stressful or panic-inducing it isn’t and Wanda half-wonders is that is from the Mind Stone in his brow.

The questions are myriad - _how strong is your scarlet, how fast is your scarlet, what can your scarlet lift or move, is it easier to be tangible to your scarlet or intangible?_ She’d frowned at the last word until Vision explained it to simply be the opposite of tangible. Wanda decides she really hates the English language.

“It is strong enough to shield against repulsor blasts and as fast as I can make it. It is strong enough to lift what I can imagine it lifting. Tangibility...,” Wanda trails off, focusses on the way her scarlet is wisping away from her hair as she tries to make it plait. “I am not usually tangible to it. It is a part of me, it can pass through me easily.”

“So,” Vision says, and nods towards where her scarlet wisps around her hair. “Doing that is difficult for you?”

Wanda smiles. “It is a test of skill. Making myself tangible to my scarlet. A challenge.” She remembers when she’d first tried to get her scarlet to tuck her hair back, and the total failure that had been. “I am getting better.”

 

* * *

 

 **iv.**  
It is not until a few days later that Vision again joins her as she watches Pietro training. She has got better at plaiting her hair with her scarlet, to the point she feels confident enough to try a French Plait, which had baffled even Pietro’s fingers. Wanda does not mind his presence, unobtrusive as he is, as his mind is, and focusses instead on making her scarlet braid, using her scarlet to feel what she cannot see, to hold what fingers could not. She almost does not hear Vision’s question.

“Could you make yourself entirely tangible to your scarlet, do you think?” 

Wanda looks up at him, completely baffled. “Pardon?”

Vision nods to her, nods at where her scarlet is tucking strands of hair into the plait. “You can make your hair tangible to your scarlet - do you think you could make your whole body intangible? If you could, you might be better able to keep up with your brother by using your scarlet to accelerate you.”

“I do not know,” Wanda says eventually. “Hair is hard enough.”

Vision nods, and they lapse to silence.

 

* * *

 

 **v.**  
“Pietro?” Wanda asks that evening. She is plaiting her hair with her scarlet again: it is a good practice and it is, now she has got more used to it, calming. Pietro, sitting on the bed beside hers hums, but does not look up from his book. Wanda tilts her head, reads _Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone_ and decides not to ask. "Will you join me for an experiment tomorrow?” she asks in Sokovian.

He does glance to her at that, eyebrows raised. “An experiment?”

Wanda twists her fingers, makes her scarlet dance around her hair and tie off the plait. “I have been making myself more tangible to my scarlet. I want to see what else I can do with that.”

Pietro looks curious and considering and then: “You’d better not be able to fly,” he says. “That would not be fair at all.”

 

* * *

 

 **vi.**  
It is overcast the next day, but Wanda and Pietro have _lived_  outside in the depths of winter. Even the quick-biting wind snapping at their coats does not chill them terribly, and Pietro’s training had toughened him still further to the cold. 

“So,” Pietro says. “What are we going to do?”

“I think,” Wanda says, considering, “I should try to lift myself.”

Pietro takes a step back, gives her space but stays close enough to lurch forward with speed and catch her should she fall. “If you can fly,” he says, tone teasing, “Then the world is even more unfair than we know.”

 

* * *

 

 **vii.**  
It does not work the first time, nor the second. The third has Wanda wobbling off the grass, and Pietro sprinting forwards to keep her stable, and the fourth has Wanda somersaulting into the air with the force. Pietro manages to catch her, but she still ends up thoroughly winded.

“Maybe you can fly,” Pietro says.

Wanda laughs as he sets her down. “The world _is_  unfair.”

Pietro shrugs, laughs. “I do not mind so much. Not if it is unfair in your favour.”

Wanda laughs again, and they wait several minutes before they try for the fifth time.

The fifth time Wanda wobbles up into the air, until her feet are of a level with Pietro’s eyes.

“Unfair,” Pietro says, but he is smiling, and catches Wanda when her scarlet fails and drops her unceremoniously into his waiting arms. “I think,” he says, sprinting them to the door inside. “The world is in our favour now.”

 

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> I know it's "Sorcerer's Stone" in America, but that name is dumb, so fuck it. The artefact is called a Philosopher's Stone and I'm not changing it to a nonsense phrase when it's easy enough to come up with a reason for Pietro to be reading a UK version. Maybe he got it at an airport after a training mission. Maybe it was lent to him by an English agent. Take your pick.
> 
> Comments and Kudos are always welcomed.


End file.
